Art the Nazis labeled degenerate

Neue Galerie

In the 1930s, as Adolf Hitler's propagandists sought to project a German ideal, modern art - the avant garde, expressionism, Fauvism, surrealism - was denounced as "degenerate." Works by such artists as Chagall, Klee, Kandinsky, Dix, Beckmann, Picasso, Matisse and others were confiscated from museums and galleries.

In 1937 the Nazis created an exhibit in Munich, titled "Degenerate Art," in which confiscated pieces were displayed with demeaning signs and slogans.

The Neue Galerie in New York has now opened a new show exploring the history of the Munich exhibition, pulling together many of the artworks involved: "Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937."

Left: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's "A Group of Artists (The Painters of the Brucke)" (1925-26).

Credit: Neue Galerie

Germanic Art

Adolf Hitler visits an art exhibition in Germany displaying works that his regime had sanctioned.

Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Germanic Art

German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Nazi military dignitaries visit an art exhibition during the opening ceremony of the "House for German Art," in Munich, July 18, 1937.

Credit: Heinrich Hoffmann/AFP/Getty Images

Germanic Art

The sanctioned works displayed in the "House of German Art" extolled what the Nazis deemed to be the virtues of the German people, in a style called romantic realism.

Credit: Heinrich Hoffmann/AFP/Getty Images

The Munich Exhibition

The day after the "House of German Art" debuted, an exhibition titled "Degenerate Art" was opened (in a dark, crowded chamber), featuring artwork that the Nazis painted as vulgar and a threat to the German identity. Two million people attended the show.

The Munich Exhibition

A visitor to the exhibition of Degenerate Art views Max Beckmann's "Der Strand" (The Beach), in Munich, 1937.

The Nazis confiscated artworks from museums, galleries, artists and private collectors, and many were sold off. A careful tally of artworks taken, compiled by the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda c. 1942, showed that 16,000 artworks were stolen by Hitler's regime.

"I don't think one can separate the Nazis' art policies, their campaign against Degenerate Art and their plundering programs later, from the ideological, the genocidal project," Jonathan Petropoulos, a history professor at Claremont McKenna College, told CBS News. "The Nazis took art away from their victims first. It was a way for the Nazis to dehumanize their victims."

Degenerate Art

A view of the exhibit, "Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937" at the Neue Galerie in New York.

Credit: Neue Galerie

Degenerate Art

What makes the New York exhibition unique is that, for the first time, both the condemned art and art sanctioned by the Nazi Party are on display, side by side.

Credit: Neue Galerie

Emil Nolde

"Red-Haired Girl" by Emil Nolde (1919). Oil on canvas.

Art Institute of Chicago, Bequest of Mr. and Mrs. George H. Tagge

Even artists who were members of the Nazi Party, like Emil Nolde, weren't spared. Olaf Peters, curator of the Neue Galerie exhibit, told CBS News' Erin Moriarty that what was considered degenerate was "the intense color. It is more the portrait of a girl, not showing us the accurate physiognomy of a girl, but more interpreting her by color."

Credit: Copyright Nolde Stiftung Seebull

Degenerate Art

Foreground: Oskar Schlemmer's "Grotesque" (1923); On the wall are two paintings by Alexej Jawlensky: "Abstract Head: Life and Death" (1923), and "Savior's Face: Starlight" (1921).

Credit: Neue Galerie

George Grosz

"Portrait of the Writer Max Hermann-Neisse" by George Grosz (1925). Oil on canvas.

Kunsthalle Mannheim

Grosz, like most of the so-called degenerate artists, was not Jewish. "You didn't have to be Jewish to be disliked by the Nazis," his son, Marty Grosz, told CBS News' Moriarty. "He was an enemy of the state. And that meant he lost his German citizenship. He lost his bank account. They garnished, they took everything."

Grosz and his family emigrated to the United States, where he taught at the Art Students League in New York City, and created illustrations for magazines like Esquire.

Credit: Art copyright 2014 Estate of George Grosz/Licensed by VAGA, New York, N.Y.